This sounds good but as many as you know $20,000 isn’t going to help much in Nevada.  We were hit so hard that many of the homes might be worth half of the loan amount.

Is it really fair that those who had to foreclose get up to $2000?  What about the people who are staying in their homes and paying mortgages.  Where is their bail out?

When purchasing a home there is a lot of paperwork.  You will never spend more money on something else in your lifetime.  Read the paperwork.  Know what you are getting into.

Tamara Parmley

eXp Realty

702.477.9000

According to Murphy:

• 75 percent of homes sold last year were distressed sales (foreclosures or short sales)
• More than half of those were vacant
• Prices are still falling, but “no longer free falling.” He says prices have bounced around the bottom for the last eight months.
• When it’s all over, he estimates 33 percent of all homes in Las Vegas will have gone through a foreclosure.

Thought all y’all (plural of y’all if you haven’t lived in Texas) would want to know.

((hugs)), BETH Ellyn

Managing Broker, Nevada

702.324.6911 call or text

beth.rosenthal@exprealty.com

Twitter: @yale1974

Read about the Las Vegas Market Forecast.

Tamara A. Parmley

702.477.9000

Everyone has an opinion. Here’s mine. Everyone has to follow the rules. You have to make your mortgage payment. They have to follow the exact letter of the law before they make you “git” out of your house.

But what I think doesn’t really matter. But the ruling of the Nevada Supreme Court will make a difference, but here in Nevada and across the U.S. Yesterday the court heard arguments on whether a bank can foreclose on a home even though it could not present all the required documents during mediation.

Attorneys for Andrew and Dauretta Davis of Douglas County claim that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) did not sign the documents properly on their home. Their original lender has gone bankrupt (natch.)

The central question is: Did MERS really assign the loan? If not, MERS can not foreclose. MERS reps did not produce a signed certification at the mediation hearing. The MERS attorney argued that MERS received that right to assign in the deed of trust the borrower signed at closing, so who cares about the paperwork?

My 2 cents: If you had the right, get the paperwork and prove it!

Stay tuned to see what really happens.

((hugs)) BETH Ellyn

Managing Broker, Nevada

702.324.6911 call or text

beth.rosenthal@exprealty.com

Twitter: @yale1974

While a majority of Las Vegas homes are indeed selling below replacement cost (in my world that’s anything under $100 per square foot), the free fall in prices may indeed be over. According to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, the median price of a single family home here in the valley in October was $121,000. In November it rose to $125,000.

Yes, that’s not a huge rise. But the news is the prices haven’t gone down. We’ll see if the trends holds when The GLVAR releases the December figures.

I personally think prices in Las Vegas have hit bottom or are darn close. However, I predict we will be here for quite a while. Maybe two more years?

What do you think? ‘Splain me Lucy!

((hugs))

For the 59th month in a row, Las Vegas was No. 1 in foreclosures, according to RealtyTrac. It’s hard to turn on the TV, read a newspaper (if you’re a certain age) or run a Google search without hearing about Las Vegas’s real estate woes.

The world also heard about houses that sold for $375,000 in 2006 selling for $131,000 today.

Well, all of that is true. However, here’s what’s not: Buyers assume that because Las Vegas is a hotbed of foreclosures and prices are down by 6o percent, it’s easy to “steal” a house in the valley.

I’m working with several investors as well as savvy couples who plan on retiring in the valley shortly. To both groups, getting the lowest price is critical to their success. Here’s the reality for house hunters based on my recent outing:

• Most of the houses today are selling below their replace cost. (Good)
• There are a lot of houses to chose from–over 20,000 in fact. There were 8,000 in the MLS when the boom started in 2004. (Good)
• Quite a few of these houses need significant work before you would want to live in them. I’ve seen houses where the entire kitchen and all the bathrooms were empty. Cabinets, sinks, commodes-GONE! (Good or Bad depending on your feelings about home repair. Me, I’m a serial remodeler…)
• It takes quite a bit of searching to find the diamond in the rough. Plan on lots of outings. (Bad)

The perfect house at the perfect price is out there for you and we at eXp know how to find it. But it is hard to find a four bedroom house with a three car garage in a gated community with granite countertops built in the last 10 years 15 minutes from the Strip for $150,000. And that’s a good thing for us locals who are committed to this community regardless of the equity we still have left in our homes.

((hugs))

At least we are not the first in foreclosures per capita. That honor goes to Stockton, California with one in every 120 homes. in this ranking we fall to No. 6.

Larry Murphy, President of Las Vegas-based SalesTrac and my real estate guru, predicted Las Vegas is only half way through the foreclosure process. He anticipate another 100,000 homes in the valley will receive foreclosure notices before it’s all over.

What does this mean for home buyers? An opportunity of a lifetime. The vast amount of homes the banks are dumping on the market is keeping prices low. I’ve shown houses significantly below replacement cost per square foot that just needed new carpet. If I win Megabucks, I’m going to use 100 percent of that money to buy houses, rent them and wait it out.
((hugs))